In Response to “The Search for the Holy Grail in Running Biomechanics: Is There an Ideal Movement Profile for Minimizing Mechanical Overload?”

Another Grail Hunt, Loud Words, Little Substance

The biblical story of the Holy Grail has haunted restless minds for centuries. It inspired poets, mystics, and even Hollywood directors. Now, this same obsession seems to have migrated into running science. In a recent article by Leporace and colleagues (The Search for the Holy Grail in Running Biomechanics: Is There an Ideal Movement Profile for Minimizing Mechanical Overload?), I encountered that familiar thirst for ultimate knowledge wrapped in biomechanics.

The authors’ desire to grasp this “divine” knowledge is understandable. Yet their conclusions echo the same notes we have heard for the last half-century of running research. Instead of discovery, there is repetition.

Elaborate Profiles, Empty of Concept

The study concludes:
“Five biomechanical profiles (P1-P5) demonstrated different running mechanical characteristics. Identifying distinct running profiles can help clinicians better understand individual variations in mechanical load and injury risk, thus informing targeted interventions, such as personalized training adjustments or rehabilitation programs, to prevent injuries and enhance performance in runners.”

It sounds precise, but it is little more than another exercise in description. Coaches and clinicians cannot do much with this information to actually improve running or prevent injury. What, behind the careful phrasing, can truly guide us to teach and train better? Here again science stops short.

Science That Measures but Does Not Understand

For more than 100 years, research on running has circled the phenomenon, fascinated by details but blind to its essence. Professor John Bertram put it plainly:

Normal running is remarkably well described but is not well understood. Although we can fully characterize how running is accomplished, we do not know why it is accomplished as it is.

 

The true Holy Grail has always been present, surrounding us, constant and free. But as is often the case with human nature, what comes without cost is not valued.

Gravity, Present in All Motion Yet Absent in Biomechanics

The force at the heart of running was recognized in Aristotle’s time, tested by Galileo, and given its mathematical form by Newton: gravity. For the movement of objects and planets, its role is accepted without question. For living movement, however, it remains ignored, hidden under the dogma that muscles alone propel us across the Earth.

Yet gravity is the endless producer of motion. It is the sculptor of bodies and the universal condition for movement. In this sense, it carries a divine origin. Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th century, identified motion itself as the first proof of God’s existence. For him, everything that moves was moved by something else, until one arrives at the prime mover. If we leave theology aside, the principle still holds: the prime mover in running is gravity.

Nature Does Not Bend to Human Labels

From here, the logic extends directly to running. Earth’s gravity, expressed through free-fall acceleration and body weight, governs the motion cycle. The question is how to employ this governor in practice. For over a century, mainstream science has denied this possibility, preferring to invent “styles” and “profiles” as though gravity would bother to distinguish among them.

But nature does not compromise. As Lawrence Gonzalez wrote in Deep Survival: “Nature doesn’t adjust to the level of your skill.” And Francis Bacon centuries earlier declared: “Nature to be commanded must be obeyed.”

Running is therefore one and the same for everyone: short or long distance, fast or slow, young or old. Gravity defines the narrow frame of the running cycle, and within this frame, movement occurs. This recognition became the foundation of the Pose Method in the 1970s.

A Method Built on Forces, Not Terminology

What does it offer? Three things:

• The ability to harness the most powerful and generous force of nature – gravity.
• A universal standard to evaluate technique across all runners.
• A clear structure and organization of the running cycle for teaching and training.

The results have been tested again and again. Injuries are reduced, often eliminated, and performance improves dramatically. In marathon camps I led with groups of 60-70 runners of all levels, the focus was not on endless mileage but on skill. Year after year, preparing for Beijing and Shanghai Marathons, 90-92% of runners achieved personal records, with an average improvement of 17 minutes. One runner improved by an astonishing 1 hour 25 minutes – from 4:15:00 to 2:50:00.

The Grail Exists, Science Just Refuses to See It

These are not miracles. They are what happens when gravity is no longer ignored but embraced.

So, what is the real Holy Grail of running biomechanics? It was never hidden in statistical profiles or descriptive studies. It has always been with us – pulling us down so that we might rise and run.

The disappointment is not that the Grail is missing, because it is not. The disappointment is that scientists, trapped in description, refuse to see it.

 

• Leporace, G., Guadagnin, E. C., Carpes, F. P., Gustafson, J., Gonzalez, F. F., Chahla, J., & Metsavaht, L. (2025). The Search for the Holy Grail in Running Biomechanics: Is There an Ideal Movement Profile for Minimizing Mechanical Overload?. Sports health, 19417381251338267. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/19417381251338267